By RICHARD SANDOMIR

July 26, 2014

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — “You don’t look like Frank Thomas,” the fan said to Frank Thomas, an 85-year-old signing autographs on Main Street.

“I’m the original Frank Thomas,” said the man who is not the younger slugger Frank Thomas, who was known as the Big Hurt.

On the weekend when the younger Thomas was being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, the elder Thomas, who had 286 home runs in his career and was in the Mets’ 1962 opening-day lineup, was signing photos near Denny McLain and Maury Wills in front of a memorabilia store.

Thomas said that the fact that someone with his name was being inducted was not the reason for his visit, his first to Cooperstown, but that it could not hurt his street appeal.

“I was invited here,” he said, wearing a cap and jersey of the Pittsburgh Pirates, his team for half of his major league career, which spanned 16 seasons. “And my name is always going to be in the Hall of Fame.” He smiled at the thought.

Thomas hit 34 home runs as a Met in 1962, including one in the home opener, and spent all of the next season and part of 1964 with the team. He did not offer any tales of those misbegotten Mets; instead, he looked for positives.

“The fans stand out more than anything else because of the way they received us,” he said.

“We did very well in ’62,” he said, thinking kindly of being part of a team that lost 120 games. Citing the number of one-run games the Mets lost that first season, he said, “If we had a closer like we had today, we’d have been in the playoffs.”

Recently, he said, he approached the Pirates’ principal owner, Bob Nutting, with a proposal: “I’m 85, I work out three days a week and I’m ready for a comeback, so how about paying me $11 million?”